Any boys track and field team that wanted to deny Phillipsburg High School the Skyland Conference championship on Tuesday faced difficult hurdles to cross.

Quite literally.

In seniors Kiyair Lambert and Steve El Eshaky, the Stateliners rolled out the best hurdlers in the field. The pair went 1-2 in the 110-meter high hurdles and 1-4 in the 400 intermediate hurdles.

Lambert won both to lead Phillipsburg to the team title at Hillsborough High School. Of the Stateliners' 81 team points, the pair's efforts in the hurdles accounted for 32.

"We're very pleased with the results," Lambert said. "The 400 time isn't what I wanted, but I did a PR in the 110s (14.26)."

El Eshaky couldn't have been happier with his high hurdles.

"I was hoping for anything under 15, and I'll take 14.66 (a personal best)," he said. "I've dropped my time three seconds in the 110s."

The meet opened with the 400 hurdles, perhaps not the ideal event in terms of warmups and preparation, but both Stateliners said that was fine with them.

"I like to get that out of the way," said Lambert, who also took second in the 200 and, with El Eshaky, helped the Phillipsburg 1,600 relay team to fourth place.

There's no question that in this case two is better than one.

"We've competed with each other and challenged each other all year," Lambert said.

"I wouldn't have accomplished anything I have all season if not for working with Kiyair and watching his form," El Eshaky said.

A brotherhood

The team title the hurdlers played such a large part in came not just from talent. Track and field ultimately may be an individual sport, but if that's all it is, it's not nearly as much fun.

And running for the Stateliners this spring couldn't have been much more enjoyable.

"Of the all P'burg teams I have been on this was the closest," Lambert said.

"We're like a brotherhood," El Eshaky said.

The Stateliners' team feeling may have been the key to propelling them past strong squads from Hunterdon Central and Franklin for their first Skyland title since 2006.

"I don't think anyone expected us to win this meet," said Phillipsburg junior Anthony Guarino, who amassed 22 points in three events (100, 400, triple jump). "Today, I think we came out and showed everybody what we can do. We slipped up in losing that meet to Montgomery (sixth place on Tuesday), but this is a whole lot more important than any tri-meet loss."

Guarino was a veteran of Phillipsburg's football team that enjoyed enormous success last fall despite iffy preseason predictions. Perhaps it was a telling parallel to track in two ways.

First, Phillipsburg, unlike many track squads, still gets contributions from multi-sport athletes who bring true team feelings from their other sports.

Secondly, success, as in football, can bring more success. The Stateliners have a month full of competitions ahead, and they hope full of more hardware.

"We feel good," said sophomore Manuel Romero, a football and basketball player who posted not one but two personal bests, going from 42 feet, 8 inches to 43 feet in the triple jump Tuesday. "Now that the dual meets are over and we're getting into the big meets I think we're feeling very confident."

With good reason.

Not just throw-ins

Phillipsburg's championship would not have been possible without the contributions from its throwers.

Phillipsburg scored well across the track and field, missing out only in the distance races.

Bogus seedings?

An oddity of the meet was that neither Guarino nor North Hunterdon's Morgan Harvey ran in the fastest heats of the 400- and 200-meter dashes, respectively. They certainly deserved to have been there. Guarino was third in the 400 in 50.53 and Harvey was second in the 200 at 25.90.

Meet director Al Stumpf, the Voorhees athletic director, said athletes were seeded according to times coaches provided.

"I have no clue why (she wasn't in the fastest heat)," Harvey said. "You'd think I would have been based on what I have run the last two years. It would have been more of a battle had I been in the last heat with (winner) Nicole (DiBlasio of Hunterdon Central)."

No shame for second

The "best efforts leading to no golds" award of the meet would have gone to North Hunterdon junior distance runner Eve Glasergreen.

Glasergreen ran The Express-Times region's fastest time of the spring in the 1,600 meters (4:59.72) and the second-fastest in the 3,200 (10:51.08) and came in second in both races to Yale-bound NJSIAA state indoor 3,200 champion Dana Klein of Gill St. Bernard's. Klein ran 4:57.76 and 10:46.54 in the respective races.